Campus and Student Activities

Students, faculty, staff, trustees and visitors at St. Vladimir's share food and fellowship all year long; at our annual Thanksgiving Feast and in our weekly Sunday potlucks; through our Lenten gatherings after Presanctified Liturgies and when St. Nicholas pays his annual visit to our community; in the evening hours when we swap babysitting services and serve together in ministry to the homeless of New York City. Living side by side is both challenging and rewarding. At its best, our community brings to mind the words of the Psalmist: "Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!"

Two deans from the Diocese of the West, Orthodox Church in America (OCA), visited seminarians from their diocese during the last week of February, 2014. The Very Rev. David Brum of the Desert Deanery and The Very Rev. Matthew Tate from the Mission Deanery met with students to hear about their time at St. Vladimir's, and to offer encouragement about future ministry and educational endeavors.

L to R: Sandro, Sara, and TorBy Sandro Margheritino, third-year seminarian and Student Council President

The formation of a seminarian happens both inside and outside the classroom. Over the course of the 2013-2014 winter break, three St. Vladimir's seminarians participated in the first-ever International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) Seminary Action Team. Together with junior seminarian Sara Staff and middler Tor Vegard Svane, I traveled to New Orleans to join nine other seminarians from five Orthodox theological schools to work as part of an IOCC home-build team, in partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The leader of our group, IOCC's Country Representative for the United States Dan Christopulos, was joined by his co-leader The Very Rev. Paul Wesche, rector of St. Herman's Orthodox Church (Orthodox Church in America) and president of the Minnesota Eastern Orthodox Christian Clergy Association.

On November 11, 2013, Seminarians Megan Martha Carlisle and Ashli Moore travelled to Washington, D.C. to represent St. Vladimir's at the pan-Orthodox ecology conference "On Earth as it is in Heaven." The event was sponsored by the Orthodox Fellowship of the Transfiguration and hosted by St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The conference focused on practical applications of Orthodox theology and ecology, and presentation topics ranged from examinations of worldwide ecological trends to architectural design in Orthodox parish construction.

Martha Carlisle was one of the members of the last panel of the day, in which participants discussed ecological concerns in the context of Orthodox higher education. She said a few words on the subject of campus activism, highlighting the existence of the St. Herman's Society for Orthodox Ecology at St. Vladimir's Seminary and advocating the commingling of work, study, and prayer, with ecological concerns. Earlier that afternoon, St. Vladimir's Seminary Trustee Anne Glynn Mackoul moderated a panel devoted to the topic "Putting Theology into Action in the Parish."